By Olha Chepil | 2023-12-01

KYIV -- Ukrainian intelligence has information that Russia has a plan to eliminate the nation's current government by the end of this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with a British newspaper.

Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022 expecting to quickly take over Kiyv, but his army has struggled mightily against its much smaller neighbor.

Moscow is still trying to oust him, Zelenskyy told The Sun in an interview published November 20.

This time, Russia's covert agencies have developed an entire operation with a deadline before the end of 2023, Zelenskyy said, adding that the Russian operation is named Maidan 3 after the 2013-2014 pro-democracy protests that toppled then Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych.

"It is meant to change the president. It's bye bye. Maybe it's not by killing. I mean it's changing. They will use any instruments they have," Zelenskyy said.

"So that's the idea, to the end of the year. They have even named the operation. But you see we can live with it."

'Some absurdity'

The operation's name is a deliberate choice, Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Maj. Gen. (ret.) Viktor Yahun told Kontur.

"For Russia, Maidan is clearly associated with the word 'coup.' And it is quite likely that the creative planners in all this are the 'Ukrainian fugitives' currently passing the time in Moscow," he said, referring to pro-Moscow Ukrainians who joined Yanukovych in Russia.

"Our covert agencies have quite informative sources among the former Ukrainian officials who fled to Moscow and are sitting in hotels somewhere and trying to somehow return to Ukraine on a 'white horse,'" he said.

"The Russian authorities don't understand that they lack public support," Yahun said when asked about the potential ouster of Zelenskyy.

"They won't find even 100 people to take, putting it bluntly, to an anti-Maidan protest, much less to overthrow the government," he said.

"I just can't imagine that some troublemakers will be brought to Independence Square, and that even 100 people will say, 'Let's go to Bankova Street, because we need to take down the regime.' This is some absurdity."

Russia's unrealistic goal is "to divide and conquer," according to Yahun.

Kremlin officials fail to understand the most important point: a real Maidan cannot be organized from the outside, he said.

"What happened during the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity was an explosion of the people's energy, which cannot be manufactured," Yahun said, referring to earlier protests in 2004-2005 and another name for the Maidan revolution, respectively.

"Afterwards, it can be guided, financed and helped with organizational, material and technical assistance, but there is no way to prepare it in advance," he said.

Volodymyr Fesenko, chairman of the board of the Penta Center for Political Studies, agreed.

"'Maidan 3' is not a new term. This slogan was around in 2014-2015. At that time some of their [pro-Kremlin] activists wanted to take [Independence] Square. Some wanted to bring down [then-Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko. Some wanted to overthrow the entire government," he told Kontur.

"It didn't work then because there was no mass support," Fesenko said.

"A truly genuine 'Maidan' cannot be artificially arranged."

War on all fronts

Zelenskyy's latest accusations come amid a Russian propaganda offensive against Ukraine.

In an attempt to divide Ukrainian society, Russian operatives released a fake video of Valeriy Zaluzhny, the top uniformed Ukrainian military commander, according to Fesenko.

"A massive information and psychological operation was executed against Ukraine, involving the release of fake videos of Zaluzhny, allegedly saying 'Kyiv is preparing to overthrow Zelenskyy,'" he said.

"Simultaneously, they spread fake news that Zelenskyy had fired Zaluzhny, and Russia-linked Telegram channels spread the idea that people should flee Kyiv and other large cities, because soldiers were going to seize power and start shooting. In other words, everyone who can should run away," said Fesenko.

The Kremlin's effort failed, however, for two reasons: the official Ukrainian response was quick, and Ukrainians already have a certain level of immunity to Russian lies.

The video in this case was a deepfake that used artificial intelligence to create the audio.

Such manipulation can be spotted by just looking closely, say observers.

"The audio and images in these videos are usually noticeably out of sync," said Kyrylo Perevoshchykov, a senior analyst for VoxChec, a project of independent think tank Vox Ukraine that exposes Russian propaganda and lies both in Ukraine and abroad.

"Of course, there are more expensive and refined programs that produce more realistic videos, but the output is still not perfect," he said.

"The lips may look suspicious, and sometimes the speakers' teeth disappear, because this video editing software not only changes the audio but also edits the images, slightly changing a person's face."

"And most important, the audio in these videos sounds perfect -- you won't hear any extraneous noise," Perevoshchykov added.

Ukrainians must remain vigilant: trust but verify, and always look for the source, he said.

"Propaganda usually hits the weakest points: corruption, the situation at the front, reforms in Ukraine, elections. So, when propagandists see these vulnerabilities, they squeeze them, twist them and remove news from its context."